On my computer it is responsible for the mega hit “Total Silence”. The title on the B-side is “Doesn’t work at all”. 
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We’ve never heard of this ASIO driver before actually. Thanks for the hint.
This.
It’s not Steinberg’s responsibility to provide great, full-featured low latency drivers for consumer hardware. Not only that, it is impossible for them to properly test, maintain, and realistically officially support such a driver, considering the myriad of possible chipsets, motherboards, AD/DA converters, motherboard devices, BIOS settings, and OS shenanigans, etc. Just impossible. It won’t happen, it shouldn’t be tried, it is a waste of time. Use pro audio devices with pro audio drivers for pro audio software.
Pro audio means pro audio means pro audio. Everything else is a workaround or stopgap solution. Yes, it would be nice and convenient when you have an emergency, but I wouldn’t touch built-in audio devices for pro audio, EVER, except I will give a slight exception from time to time to Apple built-in audio devices since Apple controls the full hardware/OS stack, and thus the realm of possible issues is much lower. But even on Apple, pro audio still means pro audio, so use a pro audio device for pro audio.
And if you want to use the converters in your monitors, then buy a pro audio device that has the requisite i/o to connect to the monitors. There are tons of options on the market, wide range of cost and features. Pro audio means pro audio, but that doesn’t mean it has to be exorbitantly expensive. There are plenty of affordable options.
Cheers!
But…
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I second Johnny Moneto: it never worked on my laptop.
Your point?
The point is that nobody asks them to do what you say that they cannot do.
Thanks Steve, I didn’t know it. I’ve found that you can also choose to install just the ASIO driver, and skip the WaveLab Cast installation.
@steve Thanks for the tip. I’ll check it out.
@mr.roos Thanks. I’ll be on the lookout.
@Monotremata Nobody needs or is asking Steinberg to write drivers for various hardware. All audio hardware, including the ones built into the motherboard, come with the necessary drivers.
FYI, generic ASIO drivers can not get any interface to play back sound if the drivers for that audio interface (built-in or external) have not previously been installed and are working correctly. All ASIO solutions are doing is “bridging” software to the hardware and their dedicated drivers, as was pointed out earlier by @Johnny_Moneto.
@Eaygee They all do. I’ve been using ASIO4ALL for years and are now using FlexASIO. I can use it in any DAW, including Cubase.
@uarte Are you hoping that some audio 'Beetlejuice" will show up if you say “pro audio” enough times?
You are making wild guesses but not informed guesses.
If I were using audio outputs out of my built-in audio card to hook up to my speakers, one can argue the merit of sound quality. However, since I am going digital out, and the data has integrity, there is precisely 0 difference in the results I get from it and what I would get from the highest-end audio interface there is if using digital output from said interface.
Let me point out to the fact that Steinberg provides their Low Latency Generic ASIO Driver for the the very reason of being able to use Cubase with a variety of computers without the need for a dedicated hardware audio interface. It was made and is provided precisely for the needs of users like myself.
This ASIO driver correctly identifies the built-in hardware and audio drivers available on the system. On my system, it displays my digital output, which I can select. However, this ASIO driver is incapable of playing back 88K! It doesn’t have that option. It only has 44, 48 and 96K.
This is not a shortcoming of my system, my audio hardware or its drivers. It is simply an inadequate ASIO driver.
So, for all of those who trumpet “pro”: this is an ASIO driver that comes with Steinberg’s pro software.
So, I am asking Steinberg to, at last update this driver or replace it with another one if they have it. That may well be the case as pointed out here:
So what is this:
and this:
and this:
and this:
and this:
and this:
Anyway, the OP is essentially and ultimately asking for professional-level audio drivers with professional-level features to make his consumer audio device perform like a professional-level device and have it do things that the consumer audio device manufacturer never intended it to be used for.
This is not feasible or frankly possible for Steinberg – or any DAW developer – to create, maintain, and realistically support. Simple as that. Nothing against you or the OP. I feel for you, I do. But that is the reality. If you want Steinberg to provide that, then it is certainly your right to ask for it. I personally would rather that Steinberg not waste their time on it, and they would probably agree it’s impossible to do. But if you want it, go for it, and I wish you the best of luck, seriously. I have nothing against you or anyone who wants that.
But your premise is illogical. Surely you can’t assume that people who pay any amount of money for software – ranging in price from free open source software (zero dollars) to expensive post software – would expect that they would magically, instantly transform their consumer hardware into professional hardware, right?
Professional software of any price doesn’t mean you have the appropriate hardware that is suitable for making optimal use of that software, right?
I mean, let’s be super honest here, Steinberg (or any other DAW developer) doesn’t CLAIM to work miracles with consumer hardware. Even Steinberg’s own System Requirements say “ASIO compatible audio hardware recommended for low-latency performance” which should give anyone a clue that you need something MORE than consumer hardware, right? These ASIO workarounds are just WORKAROUNDS, they are not intended for true pro-level performance.
And while we’re at it, surely you don’t think that all the other DAW developers, from Reaper to Pro Tools, from Ardour to Bitwig, from Studio One to Ableton Live, and everything in between, should also provide pro-level ASIO drivers?
Again, I’m not saying for you not to request Steinberg to do it. Go for it. And again, I sincerely wish you the best luck with your request.
But until that miraculous day happens, I’d suggest using a pro audio interface with pro audio drivers to do pro audio.
Great image! Love it! 
But you didn’t really respond to the substance of my post.
Anyway, cheers, and I wish you the best!
Nah, he is just asking for the support of a sample rate that his audio chip and its Windows driver support.
The times that 88.2kHz and 96kHz were pro audio only are over.
Basically the Generic driver should offer any sample rate that the WDM driver offers. No need for an artificial restriction.
My premise is not to have a full fledged audio system that meets all pro audio expectations, like good converters and very low latencies.
However, that is not necessary if you just play back some audio tracks.
To think that only professionals use Cubase for professional audio in a professional environment is maybe a bit far away from reality.
We just need to look at this forum. Many threads where people use a Realtek chip or Bluetooth headphones or, on Mac, just the built-in audio.
Ultimately it is up to Steinberg whether they think it is worthwhile investing the resources or not.
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Agreed on this point! Cheers!
Steinberg can fix this by implementing WASAPI/Windows Low Latency Audio support on Windows, and properly tagging audio threads as Pro Audio in the software.
That being said… they implement CoreAudio on macOS via a Generic CoreAudio2ASIO driver, so I don’t see this ever changing. Cubase basically doesn’t have native support for anything but ASIO - regardless of platform. The only way to use it with the native OS audio systems/hardware is via a wrapper - which they bundle with all of their products (via the Generic Driver on Windows, and on macOS as CoreAudio2ASIO, which the DAW uses to access all audio devices de facto).
If you want good support for the built in sound card on a Laptop, you really should use a DAW that has proper Windows Audio Support. Studio One, Pro Tools, SONAR, etc. I find Generic Audio drivers to be problematic with Sample Rate Support (that Windows Audio has no issues providing), Stability, or weird oddities like not being able to get audio out of ASIO4ALL without disabling all audio inputs (kind of defeats the purpose).
Also, most Generic drivers go through Windows Audio, so they’re just an unnecessary middleware question mark at the end of the day.
The problem is after you finish recording with the driver from the interface you need a good ASIO driver when you are mixing it later when the audio interface is not connected.
Uh… I don’t understand. You mix without the audio interface being connected? Surely you have some interface connected since you need conversion to analog in order to hear the mix… and if you do then that interface still should be a good interface with good drivers from the manufacturers.
I don’t really see the ‘point’ you’re making I guess.
My speakers have built-in converters, so I go direct digital out of the computer.
What I’d wish for is support for WASAPI, which is the native Windows driver and which a Windows program ought to support. I get better performance with WASAPI than ASIO4ALL, and much better than the two Steinberg drivers.
(I’m comparing with Nuendo and Bitwig – the latter also supports WASAPI.)
WASAPI is more consistent and fuss-free-- the Steinberg drivers will randomly stop working and need periodic futzing around.
Also the Steinberg built-in ASIO Driver has a weird compression pumping and harshness when I listen through bluetooth ear buds, something I don’t hear in any of the other drivers.
Of course I have good audio interfaces with their own ASIO driver which work great, but I often work on my laptop without an external interface. I’d wish that Nuendo could work as well with Windows native audio as Bitwig does.
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Have you tried ASIO2WASPI? Is there any improvement over ASIO4ALL?
I do understand it’s not proper native support from the DAW (I’d imagine all DAWS that ship for multiple OSes use a conversion layer of some sort…either natively in one of the OS domains <> ASIO or vice verse, can’t imagine they do a completely different audio engine for each driver type. ASIO with conversion layers make sense when it comes to making a DAW that runs on multiple OSes).
…just curious if you’d tried some of the ASIO2WASPI packages out there and noticed much if any difference.